Tag Archives: HTC One

I’ve mentioned Mr Nick Thatcher before. If the two of use make an occasional double act then I’m definitely the Watson to his Holmes as he, far more than I, is a bit of a genius.

A couple of weeks ago I booked two tickets to an HTC gathering (more on which later) and Nick and I had one of our occasional meet ups to discuss plans. I said I’d love a snap on clip for my trusty new One M8 and he said he’d see what he could do, as long as I was aware that he’d be out of action for one of the weeks we had before the day with work in Amsterdam.

As it was he made this… A very cool 3d printed shield and lens system for the phone:

((ahem. I’ll tell you what it looks like later 🙂 )).

In fact he made four of them…

((also more of which later)).

It allowed me to take pictures like this:

…on the train going to the venue and these pics:

…in the venue. Lovely stuff. We gave away the hair band lenses (and I hope we see some very cool images form them in the future) and I’ve got the shield clip lens so that I can play with it some more over Christmas.

The plan is, possibly, to make a limited run for sale in the new year. We’ll see, but certainly the vibe was pretty strong on the night…

But again, here’s to Nick, who makes these cool things happen even when he has a bucket load of other things to be doing… You can catch up with his awesome inventions here. If next year pans out the way I think it might remember you (possibly) heard it here first…

…was drawn on an HTC One M8 using a Plai eStylo and the very fab Autodesk Sketchbook app. This is unusual for two/three reasons; One: I now have a phone which is top of the range, which is nice (and spectacularly unusual for me – normally I rely on the phone one or two gens behind and only if I can get it for a cheap second hand price – part time teaching not making me rich beyond my wildest dreams) and Two: the eStylo works with barely anything… As I’ve mentioned before the HTC is the screen which, still, takes more styli than any other so I’m really looking forward to drawing on it more… The third possible reason is that I’ve just reviewed Sketchbook for a well known Mac magazine which is nice.

This picture:

…was drawn on a Samsung Note 3 using ArtRage app which has recently been released for Samsung tablets (partially because of their excellent integration with the S Pens). All good stuff – ArtRage is one of my favourite art apps out there.

This picture:

…was drawn on a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tablet using ArtRage again.

… and of course you all know I love my Hudls, right?

Wacom Fineline stylus (my current favourite) drawn on Didlr app on a Hudl 2. Thoroughly enjoying the Fineline – I also drew it on the iPad the other day (still in ArtRage).

Not by purpose but I do seem to be on a bit more of an Android kick at the moment. ArtRage is a phenomenal app and I’m delighted to see it on a larger range of machines 🙂 (that’s not to say that I’m not enjoying drawing on Surface tablets and the brief dalliances I’ve had with the iPad Air 2… And I really want to draw on the Nexus 9… And the HP Sprout as well, come to that). But the HTC One M8 is an excellent phone to draw on and I’m looking forward to spending time with the Samsung Note 3, 10.1 and Pro over the next week.

More, on the Android/ArtRage side of things to come. Exciting things happening tomorrow…

Powered through a hundred bits of paperwork today 🙁 as well as doing a catch up session for a couple of students… So I’d deserved a brief sketch break. And when one of the students had an HTC One that he said he was happy for me to confiscate that answered the obvious question of what I should draw on.

My styli, for the most part, are at home (didn’t think I’d get the chance to draw today) but I’ve always got a Nomad on me so Q1, 2 and 3: screen and scribble stick were both sorted and Sketchbook Pro was the only app he had installed.

Which left me with Q4: What to draw?

And this is where I often come unstuck. Life’s so busy and hectic at the moment knowing what to draw is often the leaf that derails the brain. So, when stuck I tend to throw a line on the screen and see what happens. The pic above started off that way. I wanted to doodle something in SketchTime between breakfast and bus so that’s how the face above started (and if I get the chance I’ll post the animation to YouTube sometime so you can see how it went from line to picture). The Frog below? Well, I started with a line and thought, part way through, that it looked like a lightbulb in a window and helped me know what to draw.

I’m a touch screen artist (mostly) now. That’s different, a little, from being a digital artist because of the mobility factor (although obviously I’m not going to carry an IWB with me on my walk to and from work). I love being able to sit on a bus, in a pub, in a cafe or so on and be able to draw, paint and photograph. It possibly helps that I’ve been a long time commuter on busses so can draw at the same time as anticipating bumps, corners and other traffic. It’s not much of a super hero skill, but hey, at least I’ve got one 🙂 Wasn’t particularly easy to draw on the HTC and film at the same time but what can I say, multi-tasking is obviously my secondary mutation 🙂

…but I’m also a part time teacher which means I have to think carefully about which screens I buy (or which screens I borrow when in a shop 🙂 ) I never buy a screen unless I’ve managed to draw three or four pictures on it without issue and with the screen in question accepting the styli I like the most (*cough*looking at you iPad mini with have the styli not working*cough*).

Which leads me onto my latest testing ground: the HTC One.

I’ve drawn on it before (and drawn on one yesterday as well) and hope to draw on it more in the future as well. Like it so far, worked very well with the Nomad Compose and Mini 2, the Pogo Sketch Pro and the Jot Script which are my main go-tos at the moment

The HTC Maxi is also on my list of screens I want to play with, but, just in case, I’m saving the date on the 25th, you know, just in case anyone asks me (or some of my students and I) to come and have a draw on a screen or two 🙂

Good fun – I like both the screen, stylus and app, and I was chatting to mates while doing the pic so all good. I occasionally get to meet up with mates on a Sunday for games night but, since we’ve not done that for a while, we all met up last night instead.
Process video/scribble here: https://didlr.com/cbgdDA

Didn’t have my Olloclip or Jot Script on me though 🙁 Boo. But a very nice screen to work on indeed…